Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Martin Mosebach is the author of “The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs.” Walter Mayr, Rome correspondent of German magazine Der SPIEGEL recently interviewed Mosebach, and has authorized CNA to publish a translation of that interview.
Walter Mayr: Mr. Mosebach, your book “The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs” is about those Coptic Christians who were beheaded on a Libyan beach in 2015 by ISIS henchmen. Why did you choose this subject matter?
Martin Mosebach: The subject matter came to me when I saw a picture of one of those decapitated heads – it was a face expressing a peculiar peace, a peculiar trance. The picture then did not let me go and I decided to describe what the life of these 21 men was like before they were beheaded. And so I just headed out, I went to Upper Egypt and tried to learn more from the social circle of those executed.
What makes this particular case special for you, compared to other atrocities committed by ISIS?
Terrorist attacks are usually directed against people who have not been asked about their stance on religion. But these people were questioned by ISIS after over 40 days of imprisonment; and they stood by their religion, making this a less common case. After all, terror actually is predicated on the fact that it can strike anyone who can be called “innocent.” By the way, most ISIS victims are Muslims. Here, the victims, Christian Copts, were asked at gunpoint: “Do you stand by what you believe?”
Where did you see the entire video for the first time and how can one endure watching it?
I first saw the entire video, the unabridged version showing the actual decapitation, on the laptops of the relatives of the murdered. In El-Or, in Upper Egypt. In the cowshed, so to speak, or in the houses of the families. On YouTube you can now find a sanitized version. But there, in the community of brothers, the cousins, the fathers, this is considered with composure. And with pride. They will point to their relatives in the row of the beheaded, to their brother, and say, “this is our Samuel, this is our Abanoub.”
Is that what fascinated or astonished you most at the behavior of the victims and later of the bereaved?
I went to Upper Egypt with the image in mind that we have in the West of persecuted Christianity in the Middle East. Instead I encountered a strong, growing, large, determined church full of people who in no way appeared to be pushed up against the wall, but instead really perceived the martyrdom as a great triumph, just like in the first Christian centuries.
By “Growing Church” you mean to say that the number of Coptic believers is growing?
In any case, it is much larger than what we read about here in Germany, where there is talk of eight or nine percent of the Egyptian population. Although that also would be quite a lot of people, given there are 90 million Egyptians. The Coptic bishops, however, assert that the number is closer to 25 percent of the population. There are no official statistics though, as that is not in the state’s interest.
What is the everyday life of the Copts in Al-Sisi’s Egypt like?
There is persecution, there is also legal disqualification, a Copt can not obtain a leadership position, can not become general, broadcasting director, university rector, minister, and a Muslim may not obey a Copt. But that does not prevent this group from forming a state in the state, a community that holds its head up high. After all, there is no other place that the Copts could go – they have to stay, this is their home, they are the actual descendants of the Pharaohs. The Turkish approach of yesteryear, to completely dispel the Armenians and the Greek, can not work with this number of people. When I’m in a Coptic church, I don’t get the sense of being in an underground community. The churches built after Mubarak’s fall are huge, and the towers are sometimes higher than the minarets of the mosques.
Could the troubled Catholic Church, which you so often criticize, learn from the Coptic Christians?
Yes, that it could: namely, that one must proclaim the Faith, instead of hiding one’s cross on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, like Cardinal Marx did – a Copt could not do that, because he has his cross tattooed on the back of his hand, between his thumb and forefinger. The Jews were forced to wear the Star [of David] in Germany, the Copt fashions himself his own cross.
Whilst working there, did you ask yourself how you would behave, if you found yourself in such a situation?
But of course one asks oneself the question. I realized that this is a challenge I too would have to face. Whether I would live up to it is another matter.
What role does Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi when it comes to the Copts and religious conflicts in general?
This man is not to be envied for his office.
Are you being serious?
He ousted the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood representative, President Mursi, now there is a military dictatorship and, among the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, seething rage over this act of violence against a democratically elected head of state. This anger is also directed against the Copts, many of whom of course do rely on the dictatorship, since Mursi wanted to largely deprive them of their rights.
That sounds like Sisi is the lesser evil for the Copts.
Yes, but he makes himself the mortal enemy of a large part of his own people. For example, in the village of El-Or, the construction of a cathedral for the Copts was personally promoted by Sisi himself. He also personally attends mass at Christmas, Easter, as well as requiems. He is trying to stabilize things, trying to keep a lid on this explosive pressure cooker.
You are likely to draw criticism from conservatives that your book avoids pointing out the perpetrators clearly enough, given how it eschews the “Islamic State” stereotype.
Islamism was less interesting to me in this particular case. What mattered to me was the role of martyrdom. It is inseparable from the Christian message.
Anian Christoph Wimmer translated this interview from German.
[…]
A disaster, and a disgrace for the West. The conservatives about to take control in Washington are, if anything, worse than Biden on this issue of protecting Christians and our Christian sacred sites in the Middle East. Compare Trump’s callous disregard for these our true interests with his brutal support for the ethnic cleansing and imperialist expansionism of Tel Aviv. The West has nothing to say. And Trump’s priorities for the U.S.? Deport Catholics by the million and replace them with Hindus and Sikhs. The West has nothing to say.
Rubbish.
Israel is the reason we can visit Christian Holy Land shrines in the first place. How likely might that be under a caliphate and how many would still be standing?
God bless Israel and may He protect and guide Donald Trump. 🙏
Well said, Mrscracker. You are very correct. Thank you.
Wow, the pure garbage about “ethnic cleansing and imperialist expansionism” pretty much tells us anything you have to say is worthless.
You did hear about the muslim attacks on civilians, women and babies on October 7th, didnt you? Muslim countries 20 times the size of Israel surround them so how you assert the Jews are imperialists is totally delusional.
There’s no excuse to so clueless in the year 2025.
The propaganda horror stories about October 27th have been debunked many times.
Very easily. They have been colonising the lands occupied since 1967, which even the United States recognises are integral parts of other countries. This colonising involves the expulsion of those not assimilable: ethnic cleansing of Christians (as well as Muslims), just like that occurring in Europe so many times. Nineteenth-century European nationalism is the model for this stuff.
Christians have been leaving the Holy Land in droves under Tel Aviv’s rule. They had put up with centuries of Muslim rule (a quarter of the Middle East’s population was still Christian in 1918), but the last couple of generations of Tel Aviv domination has been the last straw. Bethlehem in 1947: majority Christian. Bethlehem today: 5% Christian. A disaster for our interests. Priests living in Jerusalem get spat on every day (not by Muslims), and Israeli police look the other way. What a wonderful place.
Israel is indeed a wonderful place and the great majority of Israelis are just as disgusted by the actions of an extreme splinter group as we are by the actions of the Westminister Baptists.
I have a family member who visited Israel last year and trust me, if you walk through the wrong ultra orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem on the Sabbath you don’t have to be a member of the Catholic clergy or even a non Jew to have shoes hurled at you. Most Israelis find that extremely obnoxious behavior.
You are right Miguel, but you know is not easy.
Going back to the past no longer make sense. The october 7th seems, without doubt, induced zionist government did by desesperated mad (the 50,000 dead in gaza a truth induced by the genocide zionist government. Among them many Christians. But Muslims don’t make it easy if they don’t soften their positions).
How about a Jerusalem open to all three religions? It cannot be other thing, not belonging to any one. Remember, whoever holds the crown of Spain, holds the crown of Jerusalem. Catholic. Friend of all. Never with extremists. Two states solution now! or freedom and justice for arabs in Israel, in any case end or askenazi apartheid!
There are no conservatives in Washington, and nobody is going to risk their career to protect Christians.
True. No brave christians. I don’t know why the Western (USA and Europe) elites don’t defend the descendants of Jesus friends, Apostles, that are the Catholic Palestinians… Maybe because what you say.
My guess, Miguel is a a leftist plant who enjoys spewing ridiculous comments. Frankly it is sad, but that is the world we live in.
Regarding Christians in Syria, we in need to pray them, for both their physical protection and spiritual courage.
Rubbish guess ad rubbish if no guess.
The facts are undeniable and the “October 7” missive doesn’t straighten out anything.
Very well put LJ. Thank you.
Correction: The 2003 invasion was only a “coalition of the willing” and was not the occasion of a 15-0 U.N. vote, probably a later vote to lift sanctions. I am mistaken.
Somewhere on CWR a reader repeated that the second Iraq war was patently unjust, and opined that the new regime in Syria is simply biding its time before persecuting the Christians. Hussein was said to tolerate Christians. To which, my earlier comment somewhere, as here corrected:
Yours truly does not know enough to conclude whether or not “this new regime in Syria is biding its time to eradicate the remnants of Syrian Christianity,” nor whether we should revere Iraq’s Hussein because he tolerated/protected Christians—while also eradicating 182,000 Kurds and deporting even more, including the use of weapons of mass destruction (the 1988 Halabja attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre).
Three points and a Question:
FIRST, as an amateur from the back bleachers, my focus often turns too much on apparent details that, as possible pivot points, tend to get lost in later hindsight. “For want of a nail a shoe was lost, etc.” Example: a few altered details in Muhammad’s personal life in the 7th Century, and sectarian Islam in the 21st-century Middle East, would not even exist. Nor would ISIS.
SECOND, following are a few nails and horseshoes…
My recollection from sparse news accounts at the time are that the Iraqi scientific community had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because they feared Western actions, but they also feared to inform Hussein whose recent history and uninformed bluster seemed to confirm the continued existence of WMD. A commitment by a “coalition of the willing” that was discounted by Hussein because of probably a dozen earlier U.N. proclamations that were followed by inaction. And, later that a key Iraqi informant, claiming the WMDs existed, was simply gaming the United States into supporting his side in local an regional intersectarian strife. And, that the overall strategy to invade Iraq was designed to conclude quickly—to prevent intersectarian eruptions and what eventually became ISIS….But, the strategy was crippled by removal of the northern half of the pincer attack, by President Erdogan who only a week before the invasion withdrew his permission to cross through Turkish airspace (internal Muslim/sectarian politics?).
THIRD, in retrospect we see an unjust “preventive war,” rather than what might have been (yes, no, maybe?) a more defensible but deceived and overly complex “first strike”. The horror of it all, especially for little people in huge numbers who are always the collateral damage to the Law of Unforeseen Consequences.
The Honore de Balzac got it just about right, “bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.” Likewise, the compact, technocratic, tripwire, and modern geopolitical world. Missing is sound prudential judgment (a principle of the Catholic Social Teaching) which can be a bit less certain in practice than quoting the Gospel as policy.
QUESTION: As has been said, “while one does have the right to offer non-resistance to the knife, one does not have the right to offer the necks of one’s family and others to the assailant.” With imperfect information and in an imperfect world, how are overly-weaponized nations to navigate better between moral absolutes, and the calculus of consequences for their actions and for their inactions, both?
ISIS/ISIL/Al Sham -promise to conquer Rome. By some arrangement they went and got a sort of national legitimization in Syria. Who did that?
‘ Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)
We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. … There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
And …..
And …..
And ….. ‘
See the CWR report by Carl Olson.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/02/17/the-atlantic-magazine-isis-is-very-islamic-apocalyptic-and-avowedly-genocidal/
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/15/isis-beheads-21-christians-promises-to-conquer-rome-by-allahs-permission/